Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Ring in the New

I’ve purposely waited to post this until New Year’s Day just so I can say I did not blog in 2007. You know, because I’m contrary like that. Perhaps 2008 will be different. Perhaps it will be my most blogorrific year ever. That would be not too difficult, of course.

2008 will be different, of course. This year will see us move across the country, for starters. As Rob has said, he finishes up his residency here at Yale this summer and will start his allergy/immunology fellowship in Dallas. I’m looking forward to being back in Texas; there’s going to be a lot of positives about being there. Relationally, it will be great to be close to my family and friends from college, med school, church, and even all the way back to high school, for me, at least. And financially it will be a good thing. Rob will make about the same as a research fellow as he does as a resident but moving back to Texas will make it feel like a 25% raise, according to those online salary calculator thingies. This gives us a lot of flexibility about how much I will work, when to have another baby and take some time off, etc.

Part of me does have some mild regret for all the places we might have moved to. This has happened to me at almost every big transition in my life-- going to college, grad school, moving up here. I am always content with the path that I end up on, but I wonder about all the parallel universes where I made other, perhaps more glamorous choices and the alternate me had new and different experiences. I do have a strong streak of wanderlust which makes me a smidge ambivalent about moving back to Texas, a mere 30 miles from where I grew up, despite the comfort and support of family and friends and a steep decrease in financial stress.

Living here in the Northeast for several years has done a lot to make me value Texas on its own merits, however. I did not know if I would ever feel homesick for Texas, but although homesickness is too strong a word, listening to much of anything by Lyle Lovett will make me nostalgic for the prairie openness and sense of place in my home state. Or I will try to listen to the radio here, or go to the grocery store, and think longingly about Texas. And the Mexican food! Don’t get me started on the Mexican food. I think the best Mexican food we’ve had here has been something I or our fellow transplanted Texans have cooked at home. I haven’t spent our years here in Connecticut yearning to be anywhere else, but I’m pretty sure moving to Texas this year will feel like going home.